


Home With You

by Mxxnlit



Series: How Does The Sun Die? [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depressed Kozume Kenma, Dying Hinata Shouyou, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FFI, Fatal familial insomnia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, depressed character, dying character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mxxnlit/pseuds/Mxxnlit
Summary: They didn’t have much time left, but there wasn’t much they could do anyways, except perhaps to dream.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma
Series: How Does The Sun Die? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682446
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	Home With You

**Author's Note:**

> Two years ago, in March 28, 2018, I killed Hinata after nine months or so of detailed roleplay. In honour of that anniversary I wrote a missing scene, as well I may compile the original roleplay into a functional fic. 
> 
> It’s angst. It doesn’t really get better. Seriously it’s made clear a young man is dying of an incurable genetic disease and if anything about that doesn’t work for you please be safe and don’t read this.
> 
> The title is from “In a Week” by Hozier because titles are hard.

“...But if I really had to go I’d rather you kill me than wait for it.” 

Hinata’s muttered confession shattered the fragile peace, broke Kenma’s heart too, but what shattered him completely was his own reply, a gentle “I know,” said from behind a curtain of hair and a ducked head. It was bad enough knowing he’d have to bury his fiancé, it was worse seeing him in perpetual pain and sleeplessness. Every absent stare, every porcelain smile, every bruise striking against skin too pale on a body too thin, every bit of it hurt him to see. But it hurt more knowing there was nothing he could do but be there, to be supportive and comforting until the end. He pushed the negativity from his mind and tried to cheer up his beloved sun, after all there wasn’t much else he could do. 

It’s only later that night, curled together, listening to Hinata’s even breathing as they lie together awake that Kenma dwells. He should be sleeping, he knows that, he does. It helped no one for him to be sleep deprived as well, but still the fog of rest eluded him. Instead he thought, but despite any valid points about it possibly being more humane to help Hinata out of his misery should it come to that, Kenma couldn’t imagine going through with it, couldn’t imagine a world without his Shouyou in his arms. He couldn’t imagine a world alone. 

But a world together, an afterlife together, that was much easier to picture. He shouldn’t, he knows, knows how slippery that thought was, how quickly it could send him spiralling; the last thing he needed now was a spiral, but the thought persisted. Instead of death by inevitable decline, substitute a mutual sleep aid, overdone until slumber crept over them forevermore. It would be peaceful, as their heartbeats slowed to a halt, to lie in bed swathed in familiar warmth, or maybe instead the grass somewhere isolated and nice, the mountains perhaps, off the beaten track but familiar enough that Hinata’s last sight would be of home. Kenma could do that for him, he thinks, he could give Hinata the rest his body denies him. He could hold him safe and sound for hours, for weeks, for years, until all that remained of them was a garden. He thinks he could, anyways. 

But Hinata wouldn’t want that, had said multiple times now that he didn’t want that, that mutual ending. He wanted Kenma to  _ live _ and isn’t that cruel? What sort of torture is that to inflict on a man, to watch someone so close, so dear, wither and die, disallowed from following? 

A hand squeezed his, gently, before Hinata turned in his arms, “you’re thinking really loud, Ken, what’s on your mind?” Those big brown eyes blinked at him, wide and soft despite the harsh shadows beneath them. Despite the dim lighting, those eyes shone with so much love and earnestness, though the longer he looked, the more Kenma felt certain he could pick out fear in a minute twitch, resigned sorrow in the curve of an eyebrow. He couldn’t bear to keep looking. He guided Shouyou closer against him, gentle, careful of easily bruised skin and a fragile frame made surely of glass. He tucked his nose against freshly cleaned curls, uncaring of how the orange tufts tickled. 

“You,” he answered his fiancé, “always you.” A pause, heavy as Hinata waited him out, familiar with Kenma’s habits after the five years they’ve known each other. Finally: “...I don’t want to lose you.”  _ I don’t want you to disappear, don’t go where I can’t follow..! _

Hinata stilled, breath held for a second too long before his arms round Kenma and held as tight as the frail boy could manage. Silence filled the room, still and despised. Once Kenma had coveted the occasional silence, a reprieve from the noise of the world when everything felt too heavy, but not like this. Not this sickeningly sad silence, not the silence warning of that which will follow, sooner or later. 

“Say something, you’re thinking too,” Kenma whispers.  _ Say something, you still can, tell me everything- everything! Every thought that strikes you, talk to me now while we can. _

Hinata nods against the blond’s chest, “I am. ...Is this about what I said earlier? I’m sorry, it was stupid, and unfair. I shouldn’t have said that, you don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve  _ this _ . You’re hurting enough without me saying things like that.” He curled into himself, but into Kenma too, clutching like the other was the only lifeline in the storm, while at the same time hiding away, closing himself off. Then, a barely heard, barely spoken whisper. “I’m sorry I’m a grenade.” A sniff followed, then a swallowed sob. Kenma’s heart broke anew listening to Shouyou’s words, listening to him trying so hard to be strong in the face of the bullshit the world had thrown at them. He was twenty years old, death shouldn’t be on his mind,  _ minimizing the effects of his death _ on everyone around him should not be his concern. 

Hell, Kenma shouldn’t be worrying about this yet either, shouldn’t have to think about this until he was at least eighty, but here he was, twenty one and holding a dying man, twenty one and discussing end of life plans with doctors, twenty one and trying to hold it together. Twenty one and trying to be a pillar for a grieving mother and sister, twenty one and trying to be a comfort to someone that’s already given up. And he has given up, how couldn’t he? _Your condition has no cure… ...he’s a grenade ready to blow, are you really prepared to deal with the fallout?... ...I haven’t been able to sleep at all, Kenma, not in days… ….and Hinata_ fell…. Who wouldn’t give up in face of all that? After hearing so much shit from people who were supposed to help, from seeing his own deterioration? How was _Kenma_ supposed to keep going in light of all that? 

“You aren’t a grenade, you’re  _ Shouyou _ .  _ My _ Shouyou. And you’re hurting too.” What does a person say in a situation like this, what possible combination of words could make this better? Where were the cheat codes when they were needed? “I was thinking something else too, not just about not wanting to lose you. I had a daydream —or maybe a night-dream?— of a clearing up in the mountains, in Miyagi, and we were lying there. We lay there forever but it felt like hours, the bugs and animals eating away at us, but it wasn’t scary, it wasn’t painful. It felt peaceful, like a million tiny Sunday morning kisses. The grass grew higher around us until we  _ were  _ the clearing. Kids ran over us picking dandelions and wildflowers, and we were together, forever, rooted together by a million years, a million plants and animals binding us…” Kenma talked, soft and low about his daydream for ages, past Hinata’s relaxing against him, past the following stupor that constituted rest for the younger these days, he talked and talked until sleep crept over himself as well. The world may be against them but surely it couldn’t be that bad as long as they stayed together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know if you’re interested in the full AU!  
> Or come scream at me on [tumblr](https://applepi00.tumblr.com)


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